The new filter is being designed to prevent abusive messages from
ever making it to anyone’s Twitter feed. The feature is still
being tested, according to Shreyas Doshi, Twitter’s director of
product management.

“We have begun to test a product feature to help us identify
suspected abusive Tweets and limit their reach,” Doshi wrote
in a Tuesday blog post, which announced the changes.

So far, Twitter’s policy against abuse has been purely reactive,
so if someone complains, then Twitter investigates. The new
feature will help to prevent the harasser from making contact
with the intended target.

Twitter is also introducing “an additional enforcement
option”, which will allow its team “to lock abusive
accounts for specific periods of time”.

“This option gives us leverage in a variety of contexts,
particularly where multiple users begin harassing a particular
person or group of people,” Doshi’s statement reads.

Twitter has also updated its policy on violent threats. In the
past it was just “direct and specific” threats of
violence, now this will be upgraded to “threats of violence
against others or promoting violence against others.”

Twitter’s chief executive Dick Costolo has been critical of the
company’s poor record in dealing with abuse.
"We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and
we've sucked at it for years,” Costolo said in a leaked memo
to staff. “It's no secret that the rest of the world talks
about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not
addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day."

Costolo has promised to get tough on trolls using the social
media platform.

“We’re going to start kicking these people off right and left
and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks,
nobody hears them,” he wrote.